1. Field of the Invention
A device and method for reproducing three-dimensional or stereoscopic images and displaying a user interface (UI) for such three-dimensional or stereoscopic images is described.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as the interest in stereoscopic image services increases, devices for providing a stereoscopic image continues to be developed. Among the methods for implementing such a stereoscopic image, there is a stereoscopic method.
The basic principle of a stereoscopic method relates to a scheme for providing images, which are disposed perpendicular to each other, to the left and right eyes of a viewer in a separate manner, and the visual cortex in the brain of the viewer may interpret such two images as being combined to form a three-dimensional or stereoscopic image. The images disposed perpendicular to each other means that each image does not interfere with the other.
Some specific methods for eliminating interference include, a polarization scheme, a time-sequential scheme, and a spectral scheme.
First, the polarization scheme is a process of separating each image by using a polarizing filter. In other words, different images filtered out by polarizing filters are to be provided to the left and right eye views by applying the polarizing filters perpendicular to each other to an image for the left eye and an image for the right eye, respectively.
The time-sequential scheme is a process of alternately displaying the left and right images, and allowing active glasses worn by the user to be synchronized with the alternately displayed images to separate each image. In other words, when images are alternately displayed, a shutter of the active glasses synchronized therewith is opened only for an eye view to which the relevant image should be input and closed for the other eye view, and as a result, the left and right images are seen by the viewer in a separated manner.
The spectral scheme is a process of projecting the left and right images through spectral filters having a spectral band in which the RGB spectrums are not overlapped with each other. For such projected left and right images, the left and right images are separately viewable due to the viewer wearing passive glasses mounted with spectral filters, which pass through only certain spectral regions that are set for the left and right images, respectively.
Meanwhile, a user interface may be typically provided in a stereoscopic image reproduction device to allow the user to change a stereoscopic image display setting. The user interface may be provided for the user to change an environment or various settings of the relevant device or to control the operation thereof, and may be provided by displaying a user interface on the display screen.
As an example of displaying and providing a user interface on the display screen, On Screen Display (OSD) techniques may be used. The On Screen Display (OSD) typically provides a screen adjustment function allowing the user to directly select or change the settings of the display screen. In this case, adjustable screen settings may be slightly different from display to display, but may include brightness, contrast, synchronization, RGB adjustment, vertical/horizontal screen size, position adjustment, and the like.
However, the foregoing method of displaying a user interface (UI) on the screen in a stereoscopic image reproduction device in the related art has certain drawbacks.
In a stereoscopic image reproduction device according to the related art, the user interface (UI), which is displayed to allow setting changes or allow control of operations for 3D images, typically has a two-dimensional image format, although 3D images are also displayed thereon upon processing 3D image signals.
Such user interface (UI) with a 2D format being displayed thereon for 3D images causes a mismatch on the entire 3D image screen. Due to this, user satisfaction is degraded when using 3D image services provided by the stereoscopic image reproduction device.